Ali Abdullah Saleh and the new Yemen [Archives:2003/651/Opinion]

Mohammed Abdu Sufian Saif
Editing Manager, Taiz Newspaper
In 1978 Yemen was on a crater as the period between October '76 and 17th July '78 was of the most critical times Yemen had faced. That was when Ibrahim Al-Hamdi, ex-president was assassinated and his deputy Ahmed Hussain AL-Ghashmi took charge, only to be assassinated also after an unstable tremulous 9 months ruling on 24th June in his office with a attache case bomb. Things got even worse as crises between the north and south broke out and the whole region was in a mess desperately awaiting the hero who would save all and set everything right.
It was then that president Ali Abdullah Saleh assumed power to control the situation, a post that many feared to be only a route to death, yet he risked his life for the sake of this country and he was elected as president on the 17th of July 1978. His first objective was to stop the bloodshed and to work on ensuring safety and development for the country in a clear manner in accordance with the principles of the 26 September revolution.
Time proved that president Ali Abdullah Saleh was confident of himself and his abilities to create a better Yemen. He knew that the path is not paved with flowers and that it would be full of risks and obstacles but he believed that he can do it and had his trust on God.
And here it is, 25 years since that day and the country's history is full of achievements and going from strength to strength under the wise leadership of its president, who had displayed great skills and foresight in ruling and ability to adjust and adapt to the changes in order to lead Yemeni people to a modern Yemen, a country of law, order and institutional establishments. He had chosen democracy as a mythology to achieve all that as he formed National Dialogue Committee, a body that included members from all national forces, scientists, intellectuals and all social segments. This was the first outbreak promising of a new era and indicating the methodology which the president opted to follow. And through the present it is obvious how right he is as Yemen settled its political disputes with its neighbors and crowning all achievements with the blessed unity between the north and the south.
Ali Abdullah Saleh started a new era for Yemen, people and land through democracy and the unity he granted Yemen, and fought for despite conspiracies aimed at dividing Yemen, instigating the civil war in summer 1994. It was for the wise action of the president and the Yemeni will to maintain the Yemeni unity and will to pay the heavy price for it, that the unity was maintained.
It is of no doubt that history would record on its pages, generation after generation, the brilliant achievements of President Ali Abdullah Saleh the first elected president in Yemen and the first president to establish democracy and the first president for the united Yemen. This is President Ali Abdullah Saleh architect of unity, establisher of modern Yemen, and builder of the developing advancement of Yemen.
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